[gentoo-dev] Re: [gsoc-status] portage backend for PackageKit

[Mounir Lamouri <volkmar@gentoo.org>]

Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Montag, 15. Juni 2009 22:51:52 schrieb Mounir Lamouri:
>   
>> I'm working on a portage backend for PackageKit.
>>     
>
> Could you give us a small status update? 
>
> Does your backend already work? 
>
> Best wishes, 
> Arn
Hi,

It has been a while without weekly updates even if my mentor suffers^W
benefits of frequent updates, I didn't get really interesting things to
be said here.
Actually, I had some issues with the last functions I had to re-write.

The backend is now ready. You should be able to do anything in a
beta/realease candidate quality.
Even if I think there are still two features that can (timely speaking)
and need (user's point of view speaking) to be added:
- configuration file update
- messages / warning / errors show
They are not critical for testing but only for a daily usage.

I've already done the portage work for the first feature but I will have
to add signal to packagekit because even if debian also needs it, it
hasn't been implemented yet. The bad thing is GUI will probably not
manage this feature since a quite long time.
The second feature shouldn't be really hard.

About the packaging. I've worked on a packagekit ebuild and even if I
didn't take time to add it to the tree it could be done without a lot of
work but there is not real need at the moment because -as I said before-
without a GUI, packagekit is quite useless and last version of
gnome-packagekit needs a version gnome-policykit that is not in the tree.
As the backend should now be working correctly for a real usage it will
probably add packagekit live ebuild in the tree but if you want to test
the backend, I recommand you to clone packagekit and gnome-packakit
repositories, it will be easier ;)

After these two features, I will probably have some small things and
bugs and I will move to big things for packagekit or portage needed to
make the backend better. Indeed, there are a lot of things I've listed
that are not really needed for a working backend and too big to be part
of the gsoc. For example, merging layman into portage (actually, API
will be easy but UI probably less) and having a non-verbose portage API
because backends are using stdout for signals.

If by any chance, you test the backend, do not hesitate to contact me
for bug reports or comments.

Thanks,
Mounir